Private law and the courts

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Hong Kong's courts reached the property question at the same time as Singapore's. In Re Gatecoin Ltd the Court of First Instance held in 2023 that cryptocurrencies are property capable of being held on trust, applying the Ainsworth indicia and following the Singapore and New Zealand authorities. On the facts, however, the court found that the exchange's later terms of service had turned the relationship into a debtor-creditor one, so that most customers ranked as unsecured creditors.¹ The decision has become the standard citation in Hong Kong and is persuasive in Singapore, where ByBit reached the same property conclusion. Its second holding carries the warning that Part J, Chapter V, repeats for Singapore: the customer's position depends on the terms, so that an exchange which changes its terms can turn beneficiaries into creditors with a click.

For enforcement, Hong Kong offers the common-law toolkit that Singapore offers: proprietary and Mareva injunctions, Norwich Pharmacal and Bankers Trust orders against exchanges and, since 2022, service by NFT on persons unknown. The courts are experienced in cross-border fraud and have treated crypto cases as a variant of the trade-finance and investment frauds they have handled for decades. The author's practice has used Hong Kong disclosure orders against exchanges in parallel with Singapore proceedings and Swiss criminal complaints in the same fraud. The three systems cooperate better than their formal mutual-assistance channels would suggest, because the exchanges themselves hold the information and respond to a court order from any respected jurisdiction.

Notes

Re Gatecoin Ltd [2023] HKCFI 914, Linda Chan J, at [45] to [62] on the property question and at [70] ff. on the trust analysis of the successive terms of service. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.

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Dr Alexander Ressos, TEP

Of Counsel, KGP Legal LLC

I am Of Counsel with KGP Legal LLC in Singapore, where I work with a global client base of successful entrepreneurs and their families, independent asset managers, commodity trading houses and other commercial clients. I am a German and Swiss attorney-at-law, also admitted as a solicitor in England & Wales and in Hong Kong. I divide my time between Zug in Switzerland, Singapore and Hong Kong. Since 2017 I have advised international clients on more than 700 crypto and digital asset projects. I also have extensive experience in cross-border litigation and arbitration in Singapore, Hong Kong and other markets in South-East Asia and Greater China.

I operate across the key financial centres in South-East Asia, the Middle East and Switzerland, with a particular focus on asset protection, international tax and estate planning, as well as trusts, company administration and other fiduciary services. My philosophy is to serve as a trusted advisor working closely with my clients and to help them achieve their commercial objectives.

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